My Passion

I specialize in trauma, childhood wounds, and relationship healing with adult individuals and couples. I believe this work is innately beautiful, even in all the messiness that comes with being human.

Get To Know Me

 

  • As your therapist, I create a consistent, safe, non-judgmental, confidential, creative, curious, loving space for healing. I believe something very important happens in the safe haven of the therapeutic relationship.

  • Very early in my career I found my passion in heart-centered practice with the EFT model - Emotionally Focused Therapy. Based in attachment science, EFT elevated the basic human longings for love and acceptance underneath any struggle individuals, couples, and families faced. It profoundly opened my heart and I knew right away I found my theoretical home. Through original research, I created the first conceptual framework in the literature for integrating art therapy and EFT with couples. This was a labor of love combining my background as an artist with my work as a psychotherapist.

    Going back to 2012, I felt a deep calling to specialize in trauma and started exploring these realms. Once I became a therapist I immediately started working with couples impacted by trauma and childhood wounds. I learned several attachment-oriented, somatic, experiential, and neuroscience-based methods for healing trauma including Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing, Somatic Attachment-Focused EMDR, Brainspotting and Internal Family Systems. Although EFT is at the heart of who I am as a therapist, these somatic and brain-based ways of working with trauma have become important tools because I found that many times people would get stuck in EFT if they had a trauma history - these tools could move things along. This way of working is especially meaningful to me because these traumatic wounds are often the places where love is needed the most.

    In terms of setting, prior to my work with the Center for Psychotherapy, Spirituality, and Creativity, I worked with individuals and couples in community mental health, children through the Helen B. Landgarten Art Therapy Clinic, as well as adolescents and families in dual-diagnosis substance abuse treatment.

  • If we pan way out to the bigger picture, I’ve found the healing journey is a spiritual one towards greater connection to love within and between - individually, as a couple, as a family, in community, and in the world.

    Over the years, I’ve explored the meeting place of diverse spiritual healing practices with therapeutic work. This is because of my own powerful experiences with spiritual healing. I’ve experienced divine love that profoundly changed my life. It is one of the main reasons I am the therapist I am today.

    Through my own spiritual healing experiences, something shifted inside and I resonated with ancient Eastern wisdom teachings about the energy centers of the body as well as modern studies of the human biofield. I realized first-hand how the biofield and these energy centers were real because I could feel them in my own system, particularly during meditation. As a somatic psychotherapist this energetic sense has been an important bridge between spiritual and therapeutic work - one I am continuing to develop.

    I then learned more about the science of heart and brain coherence and how this ancient wisdom is being researched in the Western world. I studied several forms of meditation, embodied spiritual practice, intuitive development, indigenous healing methods, and energy healing modalities such as reiki, pranic healing, and coherence healing. It is part of my unique offering to bring this sense of spiritual integrative holistic healing to my work as a science-based psychotherapist.

Qualifications

Professional Titles

 

  • Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist #128231

  • Registered Art Therapist (Provisional) #24-510

  • Certified Brainspotting Practitioner

Education

 

  • M.A. in Marital and Family Therapy with Specialized Training in Art Therapy from Loyola Marymount University

  • B.S. University of Southern California

Individual Therapy Certificates and Advanced Trauma Training

 

  • Brainspotting Phase 1, Phase 2, Consultation for Certification

  • From Freeze to Thaw: Unlocking Trauma in the Body with Brainspotting

  • Sensorimotor Psychotherapy for Trauma and Developmental Injury Levels 1, 2 & 3 (in progress for certification)

  • Somatic Experiencing Beginning I, Beginning II, Beginning III (SEI)

  • Somatic Experiencing Group Consultations Focusing on Sexual Abuse and Sexuality w/ Ariel Giaretto (ongoing)

  • Somatic Attachment-Focused EMDR (S.A.F.E), Review of the EMDR Standard Protocol (EMDRIA)

  • EMDR & Parts Work for Treating Complex Trauma: Somatic Techniques to Decrease Defensiveness and Facilitate Trauma Processing (Arielle Schwartz)

  • Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy for Trauma Levels 1 & 2

  • IFS Stepping Stones (IFSCA)

  • IFS Level 1 (IFS Institute - in progress)

  • Treating Complex Trauma with Internal Family Systems (IFS) w/ Frank Anderson

  • Frank Anderson’s Internal Family Systems Trauma Treatment Program - 4 Month Intensive (in progress)

  • Internal Family Systems - Legacy and Cultural Burdens (IFS Institute)

  • Internal Family Systems - Unattached Burdens and Guides (Robert Falconer)

  • Direct Access - An Essential IFS Skill (Fran Booth)

  • Bringing IFS Informed Practice to Groups (IFS Institute)

  • IFS Immersion: Integrating Internal Family Systems (IFS) Across Clinical Applications

  • Internal Family Systems - Introduction of Somatic IFS: An Embodied Approach to Healing Trauma (IFS Institute)

  • Healing Trauma through Spiritual Connection with Robert Falconer (IFSCA)

  • IFS and Past Lives with Robert Falconer (IFSCA)

  • New Dimensions of Trauma Healing: Energy, Neuroscience, and Spirituality w/ Frank Anderson

  • Spirituality Without Bypassing with Lissa Rankin and Richard Schwartz

  • Traumatic Grief with David Kessler and Frank Anderson

  • Emerging Defense Responses to Trauma Beyond the Fight/Flight/Freeze Model with Bessel van der Kolk, Janina Fisher, Stephen Porges, Ruth Lanius; Thema Bryant, Kathy Steele, Deb Dana, Usha Tummala-Narra, Pat Ogden

  • Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC)

  • Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT)

  • Seeking Safety Treatment for PTSD and Substance Abuse

  • Nature-Based Interventions (Somatic Wilderness Therapy Institute)

  • Working with Core Beliefs of ‘Never Good Enough’ with Pat Ogden, Susan Johnson and others

Couples Therapy, EFT Couple Therapy Certificates and Advanced EFT Training

 

  • Internal Family Systems - Intimacy from the Inside Out (IFIO, IFS Institute)

  • EFT Externship with Sue Johnson

  • EFT Core Skills Training

  • Individual Supervision in EFT with Certified EFT Supervisors (20+ hours)

  • EFT Cafe: Training and Consultation (Ongoing)

  • EFT Attachment Injury Resolution Model (AIRM)

  • Working with Trauma in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy

  • Transforming Addiction through EFT

  • Addressing Addiction in EFT

  • Navigating the Neural Dance: Applying Polyvagal Theory to the Practice of EFT

  • EFT Lab: Stage 1 and Stage 2

  • Success in Vulnerability (EFT)

Family and Child Therapy Training

 

  • Theraplay Level 1

  • Emotionally Focused Family Therapy Essentials Levels 1 and 2

  • Integrative Therapy for Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Connecting Primitive Reflexes and Brain Imbalances to Polyvagal Theory to Improve Learning, Behavior and Social Skills

  • Internal Family Systems with Children & Adolescents: Using Parts Work to Help Young People Heal

  • Assessment of ADHD in Children and Teens

  • ADHD & Emotion Regulation with Dr. Russell Barkley

  • Trauma-Focused CBT

Work Experience

 

  • LMU Department of Marital and Family Therapy (Guest Lecturer)

  • Center for Psychotherapy, Spirituality, and Creativity

  • Airport Marina Counseling Service

  • Discovery Mood & Anxiety

  • Helen B. Landgarten Art Therapy Clinic

Research Experience

 

  • Principal Investigator: “Integrating Art Therapy and Emotionally Focused Therapy with Couples: A Conceptual Framework”

  • LMU Department of Marital and Family Therapy: Art Therapy with Cancer Patients in Conjunction with Cedars-Sinai

Additional Training

 

  • LMU Certificate in Contemplative Practices

  • UCLA Mindfulness Awareness Research Center Levels 1 & 2

  • Integrative Health & Multiple Mind-Body Energetic Healing Methods

    • Intuitive Development, Coherence Healing, Reiki, Pranic Healing, Akashic Healing

  • Diverse Eastern and Western Spiritual Practices

Professional Memberships

 

  • California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT)

  • International Center for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT)

  • Emotionally Focused Therapy Center Los Angeles

  • Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute Professional Association (SPIPA)

  • American Art Therapy Association (AATA)

  • Southern California American Art Therapy Association (SoCal AATA)

  • Rocky Mountain Brainspotting Institute

“The center of your heart is where life begins – the most beautiful place on earth.” - Rumi

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